Playing At Business

The garments industry is a cutthroat business, and a select group of 25 students from the Carlos Hilago Memorial State College in Bacolod is finding out just how competitive the business world can be. Huddled in "board meetings", they are dealing with the risks and challenges of running a jeans manufacturing business, making decisions on pricing, marketing strategies, and capital expenditures that will have immediate effect on their company’s balance sheet.

Fortunately, even if they make the wrong decisions and company profits dip, they will not have to face irate creditors and bankruptcy–at least not for real. The "company" they are running is a simulated one, part of a unique business training program based on a computer-assisted business simulation game that gives students hands-on experience in running a company.

Welcome to the world of WIWAG, a management game that teaches participants how to manage a company by enhancing their understanding of production, finance, marketing, human resources, and how these different aspects are linked within a company structure, and how these can be affected by the external environment such as inflation, GNP, minimum wage standards, and other economic and financial factors.

WIWAG is a German term meaning "business week", which is how long a WIWAG session lasts.WIWAG started in the early 1970s in Switzerland, borne out of the need to enhance the knowledge of public high school students in basic economic and business management. Holcim, a Swiss company that is one of the world’s leading cement producers, established the Ernst Schmidheiny Foundation to address this need, and together with the Institute for Economic Education of the University of St. Gallen, developed the WIWAG Management Simulation Module. To date, over 100,000 public high school students in Switzerland have been trained, and the module has become part of the curriculum of most Swiss high schools. WIWAG is also held in schools in Germany, Italy, Brazil, Thailand, Spain, Mexico, Austria and Slovakia.

Holcim introduced WIWAG in the Philippines in 2002, with a pilot course with 21 students and six managers held in July. In 2005, Holcim Philippines set up the Education for Youth Enterprise or EYE Foundation as the vehicle to implement the WIWAG program in the country.

Jocelyn Perez, EYE Foundation president, reveals that since WIWAG was first held in Tagaytay in 2002, over 450 students from nine state colleges and universities all over the Philippines have participated. These include Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology in Iligan City, University of Southeastern Philippines in Davao City, Bulacan State University, Don Mariano Memorial State University in La Union, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, and the University of Makati. She explains that WIWAG is offered to students of public colleges to give priority to those with lesser means.

Corporations, foundations and organizations, even individuals, can sponsor WIWAG training programs in a public college of their choice. The one at the Carlos Hilado Memorial State College was sponsored by the Mariposa Foundation of the Hilado family.

Furthermore, companies or individuals can volunteer to be trained as WIWAG instructors. While there is no age limit, candidates for trainors must be middle management or self employed or retired entrepreneurs with an understanding of entrepreneurial and economic interrelations, including social responsibility.

When accepted, candidates undergo a workshop with WIWAG trainors from Switzerland, and must commit to leading at least one WIWAG course per year. In the Philippines, WIWAG currently has a trainor pool of 50.

How does WIWAG work?

Participants first decide on a product–jeans, bicycles, sunglasses, and the like–and are then divided into teams of five or six members who form a "company", assigning among themselves a CEO, operations manager, production manager, marketing manager and human resources manager. They prepare a business plan, taking into account the given inputs such as inflation rate, labor conditions, availability and costs of materials and supplies. Sometimes they are given a ten-year-old company to run, and are tasked to plot the company’s future; sometimes their business plan may have to include reducing costs and firing workers.

The students are given lectures on business basics such as financial concepts, accounting, production, marketing/advertising/public relations and even corporate social responsibility. Each daily session begins with a press review, where they review the day’s major news stories, with emphasis on business news. This exercise helps participants develop the habit of keeping abreast of and understanding events in the world around them, and how these may affect their particualr business.

The work of each team is evaluated at the end of the day, to see how the decisions made impacted on their company’s performance. Did sales increase? Did this increase justify the cost of investing in a new machine? Does the pricing structure have to be adjusted?

At the end of the five-day session, the business plan of each group is presented before a general assembly and validated by the panel of trainors. The students/businessmen get valuable analysis and advice on how to run a company, and many graduates have put the knowledge gained from that experience to good use. Several have started their own businesses, while one graduate reports that he was not only hired by a top fast food chain but given a managerial position straight away.

The EYE Foundation has set a target of 30 WIWAG courses for this year, involving 750 students. Since last year, 22 Business Weeks have been conducted in 11 colleges nationwide, with 538 students trained.

Sometimes we encourage young people to go into business, to become entrepreneurs without adequately preparing them for the task. WIWAG lets them "play" at business–and learn valuable lessons on how to run a business.

For more information on WIWAG, contact the EYE Foiundation at tel 870-0498 or email Elaine Mapa, executive director, at Elaine.mapa@holcim.com